Mr. David Hall:

On that point, courage and leadership are two words that are bandied around regularly, but we have 100,000 citizens who are in fear of what will happen in the future. It is incumbent upon the Dáil to draft legislation. We have a mechanism through the President, the Council of State and the Supreme Court if we want to stress-test legislation, so why do we not stress-test legislation that starts to rebalance the imbalance that has existed for seven years? That is the courageous move that is required. It need not be something off the wall but something reasonable that protects those tenants, those who are most vulnerable and those who are on social welfare, having lost both incomes or the one income within the family and who may or may not have children in the household. These people will end up homeless. In parallel with the various homelessness crises we deal with at the moment, these people have dramatic mental health challenges as time goes on. That will come at a cost to the State.

Deputy Durkan asked about it earlier on, and he is right. There is a cost to the State relating to this, but there are no free houses. No one is advocating a free house. We are advocating someone has a safe home, and that requires courage, leadership and a massive rebalancing of a dramatic imbalance in favour of financial institutions. We guaranteed, without any legal instrument, €500 billion. We pumped €64 billion into banks. We had multiple late-night sittings of the Dáil to protect financial institutions. While we gave money to some banks, 56% of them, the others' existence is because the State stepped in. The entire system would not have been existing. There needs to be payback for those vulnerable customers and citizens who are now facing the abyss. Many organisations, including ours, have done and are doing their best, but unfortunately the numbers are now in an emergency situation, require emergency legislation and this has to be grabbed firmly. As I said, with any major disaster, people who may be missing from this side of the fence when it comes to giving the committee evidence are major disaster planners. International major disaster planners who could tell the committee how to deal step by step with what is coming are what the committee needs.